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Archive for Deaths prior to 2010

from Jean Calder

The poem that follows is a tribute to Jane Longhurst.

Jane Longhurst (31) was strangled to death in a flat in Waterloo Street, Brighton, Sussex on 14th March 2003. Her body was desecrated and later found burning in woodland in Wiggonholt Common near Pulborough, West Sussex on 19th April.

Graham Coutts was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Jane was a very popular special needs teacher and talented viola player, who lived in Brighton, with her partner. She worked at a local school and assisted with the Brighton Youth Orchestra.

We are honoured that Jane’s mother Liz Longhurst, who became a campaigner against violent pornography, is one of our patrons.

This poem is written for her in memory of her wonderful daughter.

Grace of God

Swan necked
She stands at the forests’ edge
Far from the crowd’s wild cry
The brush and faggots’ crack
And the sighing of the wind.

Strong armed
She lifts the bow
Drawing it deep
In dappled woods of pine
Across the strings
And crafted mouth
of the tender bellied wood

Her music sounds in Wiggonholt
Eddies through the undergrowth
And sings above the wind

Through the breathing of the strings
And the piping of a child
She lives again.

Now, primroses grow
Keys of gold
Among the trees,
On the common where she lay

And in the city
Where her heart last beat
Music soars
And violets grow.

Died in 2005

Janet Brown (45) of Hexham, Northumberland was murdered in 2005. Her body has never been found.

Donald Graham (60), of Sparty Lea, Northumberland, was convicted of her murder. In June 2014 a judge at Newcastle Crown Court jailed Graham for life, saying he would not be eligible for parole for 32 years. He had denied murder but admitted fraud.

Ms Brown was a wealthy property developer and occasional television extra.

Ms Brown had been in a relationship with Graham, who was married. During the trial, the court heard him described as a “controlling and manipulative” man who killed Ms Brown, a, to fund a lavish lifestyle. Once having disposed of her body, Graham took advantage of the fact that Ms Brown had planned to go abroad by sending fake postcards from France saying she had found a job.

The trial heard that Ms Brown went missing just before she was due to go on holiday with Graham. After she disappeared up to £400,000 was transferred from her account to Graham’s in the space of a year. He also sold her Porsche, with personalised number plates, on eBay. He then befriended her elderly parents, and when they died went on to strip their estate of £285,000 before trying to get hold of their £300,000 farm. It was only when a building society clerk raised suspicions over a signature on a document that a fraud investigation began. It later became a missing persons inquiry, and eventually a murder investigation.

Ms Brown’s body was not found, despite an extensive search of farmland close to Graham’s home.

Sentencing, Judge Justice Openshaw said: “He was once a JCB digger driver, he could have disposed of her in some deeply-dug pit or put her down one of the many mine shafts in the area, or buried her in some wild and remote place. That he disposed of her body is obviously an aggravating factor.” He added that the fact that the murder was driven by financial gain was another aggravating factor. He said “All these offences were made possible only by the murder and he used the money to fund his extravagant and flashy lifestyle”. He added “The defendant has been convicted of a terrible offence, and must now pay the price.”

Speaking after the verdict Detective Chief Inspector Nicola Musgrove, of Northumbria Police, said: “Graham is a controlling and manipulative man, particularly towards women, a bully who deliberately instils fear into people and uses intimidating behaviour to get his own way. He is a callous man who made it look like Janet was alive when in fact he had, motivated by financial greed, murdered her.” She added “Despite living a seemingly modest lifestyle, Janet Brown had considerable assets – Graham fraudulently accessed these and her parents’ money and squandered everything on a lavish lifestyle for himself.
This has been a long running, complex investigation with many challenges; not least that Graham has never indicated where Janet’s body is. The final piece in Janet’s murder would be for Graham to admit what happened to her and give her family the opportunity to grieve.”

Janet Brown’s family said in a statement: “The last four years have been very difficult for us, dealing with the aftermath of these events. We would like to say that we are pleased with the verdict.”

Denise Graham, who was married to the killer, told Newcastle Crown Court that her husband became “nasty” towards her after starting his affair with Ms Brown. She told the court how, in 2010, Graham forced her to phone a solicitor and pretend she was Ms Brown as part of a scam to inherit her late parents’ estate. Without her knowledge, her husband bought a house in Seaton Delaval and allowed Ms Todd to live there, and she told the jury she only found out later after checking with the Land Registry. Ms Graham was asked if she ever questioned her husband about what he was doing when she spotted his car parked at Ms Brown’s parents’ house near Hexham. She replied: “No. I was frightened by him. I was told by him never to ask where he had been or what he had been doing.”

A jury was unable to reach a verdict on co-accused Elizabeth Todd, who was also having a relationship with the killer. She denied fraud and perverting the course of justice and now faces a retrial.

Went missing 18th March 2009

Claudia Lawrence (then 35), who lived in Heworth and worked at the University of York, went missing on 18th March 2009. Police believe she was murdered.

In May 2014 Michael Snelling (59) from York was arrested on suspicion of murdering Ms Lawrence. This is by far the most significant development in this inquiry in five years.

Ms Lawrence was a chef who worked in a kitchen at York University. She was last seen at around 3.05pm on 18th March, walking back towards her home, and that night she spoke to her parents on the phone. It is thought something happened to her after she left for work early on 19th March. She was reported missing by her father Peter Lawrence on 20 March 2009. Extensive searches of the area were made, but she was not found and police have since treated her disappearance as murder.

North Yorkshire police launched a review of the investigation last year after the force established a new major crime unit.

Previously, in March 2013 Claudia Lawrence’s mother, Joan Lawrence, then the Deputy Mayor of Malton, where she lives, had urged an independent review of the original North Yorkshire Police investigation. At that time, Cllr Lawrence described the police’s attitude as “infuriating”. She said she wanted detectives to make a “fresh start” and “go right back to the beginning”. She felt that in the first investigation there had been too great a focus on her daughter’s personal life and that opportunities had been missed in the early days. She said “I think they have made so many mistakes from the beginning. I think the first 72 hours are crucial, and this is where they slipped up.”

The most significant turn in the new inquiry prior to this arrest was a Crimewatch appeal on the fifth anniversary, a few weeks ago, when police revealed they had carried out new searches in Ms Lawrence’s home and had found new DNA and new fingerprints. There were subsequent calls from the public after that appeal.

It seems that progress is finally being made in an investigation that appeared to be at a dead end.

North Yorkshire Police have been carrying out forensic examinations at Snelling’s house in Burnholme Grove, York and at another house in North Shields, Tyneside, where his mother used to live. Police have also seized a car and said further arrests could not be ruled out.

Note: This report was drawn from the BBC, Daily Mail and the Guardian.

Died 29th July 2008

Cassandra Hasanovic (24), known as Cassie, was murdered on 29th July 2008 outside her mother’s home in Bognor, Sussex.

Hajrudin Hasanovic (34) her Serbian-born husband, of Guston, near Dover, was jailed for life in 2009 for her murder by Judge Richard Brown at Lewes Crown Court. He will serve a minimum of 18 years.

He had denied murder but had admitted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility.

Ms Hasanovic was living separately from her violent husband and was on her way to a refuge when she was stabbed to death in front of her young children and mother.

In February 2014 a jury at an inquest in Chichester, Sussex returned a verdict of unlawful killing and criticised the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Sussex Police for failing to take steps to safeguard her life.

The inquest heard that in fear for her life, Ms Hasanovic decided to leave her mother’s home in Bognor Regis and go to a women’s refuge. She had asked police for an escort to the refuge but the request was refused. As her mother started the car with Ms Hasanovic and her children in the back, Hasanovic appeared. He then grabbed his wife, pulled her across one of the children and into the street, where he repeatedly stabbed her with a large kitchen knife.

Following the inquest verdict, West Sussex Coroner Penelope Schofield said she would be writing to the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sussex Police and the CPS to recommend information on domestic violence cases be shared across forces.

Jaswant Narwal, chief crown prosecutor in CPS South East, said: “It is now clear that there were shortcomings in the way in which we dealt with Cassandra’s case [in 2007].
Since that time, the CPS and the criminal justice system as a whole have seen significant changes in the way we prosecute domestic violence and sexual offences.”

Detective Chief Inspector Pierre Serra said the murder was a “watershed moment” for Sussex Police and the force had already learnt a number of “important lessons” about how it dealt with domestic abuse. He said “We continue to express our sincere condolences to Cassie’s family who have suffered this tragic loss of a mother and daughter”.
“Sussex Police acknowledges the verdict of the jury in this case and awaits the Coroner’s letter highlighting points raised in the inquest.”

The Inquest seems to have come to very different conclusions from an earlier investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which began an investigation because of police contact with Ms Hasanovic before her death. That report said the officers who dealt with her complaints about her estranged husband had “acted appropriately”. The IPCC also said officers were not obliged to transport her to the women’s refuge on the day of her murder.

At the time, IPCC Commissioner Mike Franklin said: “The IPCC investigation was thorough and I do not believe that the tragic events that unfolded on 29th July could reasonably have been foreseen by Sussex Police and prevented.”

The Coroner’s view and the police and CPS response seem forcefully to contradict this.

During Hasanovic’s two-week trial, jurors heard how he attacked Ms Hasanovic after losing a custody battle for their two young sons, aged five and three, and was being deported. The court heard she had voiced repeated fears to police and her family about a catalogue of threats and abuse she had suffered during their five-year marriage.

Judge Richard Brown told Hasanovic: “I am satisfied on the evidence that you clearly planned to kill your wife and you armed yourself for that purpose. This was an horrendous act of violence committed in a public place in full view of your children, the very children you claimed to care so much for. In killing her, you have deprived those boys of their mother and devastated her family and friends.”

In a statement after the sentencing, Sharon De Souza, the mother of Ms Hasanovic, said “a light has gone out of our lives”. She described her daughter as “a beautiful, loving, compassionate, inspirational woman” who absolutely adored her children. She said
“This brutal, cruel and senseless act has torn our lives apart”.

Hasanovic was arrested on suspicion of attacking his wife after their marriage came to an end in May 2007. A non-molestation order was imposed by the courts in April 2007 banning Hasanovic from venturing within 250m of Ms Hasanovic or from calling or texting her, but he continually breached it.

Jurors heard she fled to relatives in Australia, but was forced to return to the UK after Hasanovic started legal proceedings to try to gain custody of their two sons.

Ms Hasanovic’s mother, Sharon De Souza, told the inquest her daughter gave Sussex and Kent police forces information about where her husband, who lived in Dover, was working and living. Despite telling them he was repeatedly breaching the non-molestation order, no-one seemed to be doing anything to catch him, she said.

Ms De Souza said her daughter had been “unravelling in fear” about what Hasanovic would do to her. During the trial, Hasanovic was described as a “paranoid and jealous” partner who turned his wife from being bright and bubbly to a “petrified” young woman.

Ms De Souza said her daughter’s mobile phone had a direct line to the police and that a panic button had been installed in her home. She said Hasanovic called her daughter continually and even made a friend request to her on Facebook shortly before he killed her. She said Ms Hasanovic had been frightened to go out on her own and would only let one of her children go into daycare because they had CCTV cameras and used codes to get into the building, so there was less of a risk of abduction. She said her daughter felt like a “sitting duck” but could not go anywhere because Hasanovic had taken the children’s passports.

Her mother said “She kept saying to me, ‘I know he’s going to kill me mum’. His time with immigration was running out and she believed that was when he would do something because his situation was getting desperate. She was unravelling in fear and the refuge was offered.” Ms De Souza said she believed the police should have given them help to get to the refuge safely but when they asked for help nothing was done.

During the trial, Prosecutor Philippa McAtasney QC told the court: “He knew that he had lost the custody battle and was about to be deported, so in anger and hate he carried out the threats to kill that he made to Cassandra on numerous occasions.”

After the trial Detective Chief Inspector Graham Pratt, from Sussex Police, described Hasanovic as “cold and callous”. He added “When he realised that he was likely to lose what was most important to him, namely his children, he planned to kill Cassie”.

from Jean Calder

My daughter was three when Kelly Anne Bates died and five when her killer came to trial. Kelly Anne’s death was the first I had ever written about, certainly the first account of a homicide that I ever had published. I have never forgotten her, nor ever wanted to – though the circumstances of her death were truly terrible. I have not spoken of her to my daughter, but in a way, she has always been present as a part of our lives. Her dreadful death was one of the reasons that I set up For Our Daughters.

Kelly Anne Bates died at the age of 17, on 16th April 1996 in Manchester. She was murdered by James Smith, a a 49-year-old misogynist with a history of extreme violence towards women. Kelly Anne was just 14 when Smith first targeted her – and 16 when she moved in with him.

Kelly Anne was tortured over a period of four weeks before her death, kept prisoner and starved, tied by her hair to a radiator and a chair. A post-mortem examination of her emaciated body revealed she had suffered injuries on 150 separate sites, including a fractured arm and crush injuries to both hands. She had been beaten, stabbed in the face and body with scissors and forks, scalded, branded with a hot iron on her thigh and partially scalped. Her ears, nose, eyebrows, mouth, lips and genitalia had been mutilated and she had wounds caused by a spade and pruning shears. Smith gouged her eyes out, as the pathologist said “not less than five days and not more than three weeks before her death”. He also stabbed her in the eye sockets in the three days before her death. Finally, he beat her about the head with a shower head and drowned her in a bath.She had lost around 20 kg in weight and had not received water for several days before her death.

Peter Openshaw QC, the prosecutor said: “It was as if he deliberately disfigured her, causing her the utmost pain, distress and degradation … The injuries were not the result of one sudden eruption of violence, they must have been caused over a long period [and] were so extensive and so terrible that the defendant must have deliberately and systematically tortured the girl.” The cause of death was drowning, Openshaw said, adding: “Her death must have been a merciful end to her torment”.

William Lawler, the pathologist who examined Kelly Anne’s body, described her injuries as “the worst he had seen on a murder victim”. Peter Openshaw told the jury at Manchester Crown Court that her physical pain would have been intense, causing “anguish and torment to the point of mental breakdown and collapse.”

According to her mother Margaret, Kelly Anne loved children. She said “She was bright and bubbly” adding “She didn’t walk. She bounced.” Kelly Anne studied at a college in Hyde, Greater Manchester and had worked for a graphics firm. She was strong, was interested in sport and had played hockey, but by the time of her death weighed only seven and a half stone.

The court heard evidence from Smith’s ex-wife and girlfriends who told of his repeated violence and obsessive jealousy. He had come close to drowning two of them and Kelly Anne was not the first under age girl he had targeted. People noticed signs of violence on Kelly Anne well before her death.

Despite his age and history of extreme violence, the fact that Kelly Anne was legally still a child under the terms of the Children Act and for most of this period under the age of consent, nobody protected her, though her parents tried desperately to do so. Police and Social Services took no effective action. After her death, there were no appalled statements from politicians, no calls for a public inquiry.

Now, 18 years later, Britain is dealing with an epidemic of violent sexual abuse of teenage girls – and finally is beginning to believe them. But I have little doubt that before Kelly Anne died, she would simply have been seen – as so many abused girls were at that time – as just another ‘teenage slag’, a silly girl ‘consenting’ to abusive sex with an older man.

Kelly Anne was comprehensively failed – during her life by individuals and agencies who should have protected her and helped her family – and after her death by politicians who should have been outraged at the manner of her dying.

For Our Daughters is determined that she will not be forgotten.

A while ago, I spoke about her at a public meeting. I described For Our Daughters’ commemorative work as “a kind of resurrection”. When I went home, I began to write a poem about Kelly Anne which I called “The Resurrection of Kelly Anne Bates”.

That poem is printed below. Please read it and forgive its inadequacy. I am no poet.

The Resurrection of Kelly Ann Bates

Fire and water did for me
Hephaestus
Base metal laid me low,

You tempered me in plastic
And sculpted me in stone

But I have turned away from you
I have raised my head
I have heard the women singing
And know that I’m not dead

I hear the rasp of a beetle’s jaw
My sinews bind to the dust
I feel the sap in my ancient heart
As I burst from the earth to the air

My body grows like a wild oak tree
My legs like the mountain ash
My arms are filled with turtle doves
The sparrows sing to me

Great rivers stream from my wide mouth
my wings are full of air
My teeth are bright as the flaying knife
There’s music in my ear

The sea comes up to greet me
As I dance with my great feet
I hear faint sounds as your hammer pounds
But I have conquered fear

I set my heel upon your skull
I pound your iron to ash
I leave you a ride on the potter’s wheel
and a stone to break your back

I leave you a duck in your local pond
A bridle for your tongue,
I leave you the beat of myriad feet
For I do not dance alone

Died April 2012 and August 2007.

Michelle Bickerstaff (47) died in April 2012. Margaret Weise (50) died in August 2007, both in Dromore, County Down, Northern Ireland.

Leslie Ross (66) appeared in court in August 2013 charged with two counts of murder. Both women had had relationships with Ross.

Ross has also been questioned over a third death. Detectives have prepared a file for the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service in relation to the death of Elizabeth McKee (52) in December 2002.

He was reportedly also charged with indecent assault, gross indecency with a child and indecently assaulting a female child. He denies all charges.

Ms Bickerstaff’s sister Sharon Sparks has sent a message of sympathy to Ms Weise’s son., Paul Herron. he said “I received a message from Michelle Bickerstaff’s sister wanting to know if we wanted to talk,” adding “I will return her message and see what way things are with her family. I’m sure we can work on things together. Everyone is going through the same kind of pain.”

Mr Herron pleaded for local people to give police any information they have which might lead to answers about his mother’s death. He said “Any information you give could be a piece of the jigsaw. I am sure there are people who know more than they are letting on.”

A relative of Ms Bickerstaff’s described her as “a very, very kind person, a lovely girl”.

Jenny Dickson, daughter of Elizabeth McKee, said she is waiting for information from police and was too upset to add any further comment.

Police have appealed for anyone with information that could help the investigation to come forward. The PSNI can be contacted on 0044 28 38315339, and Crimestoppers at 0800 555 111.

Note: This short report was drawn from a report in The Journal and Newsletter of Northern Ireland.

Died 14th March 2003

Jane Longhurst (31) was strangled to death in a flat in Waterloo Street, Brighton, Sussex on 14th March 2003. Her body was desecrated and later found burning in woodland in Wiggonholt Common near Pulborough, West Sussex on 19th April. Graham Coutts (then 35) was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Jane Longhurst was a very popular special needs teacher and talented viola player, who lived in Shaftesbury Road, Brighton, with her partner. She worked at a local school and assisted with the Brighton Youth Orchestra.

Coutts was the partner of Ms Longhurst’s close friend, Lisa Stevens, also a teacher. He killed Jane Longhurst at the flat he shared with Ms Stevens in Waterloo Street, Hove. He is believed to have raped her when she was unconscious and to have sexually abused her body when dead. He kept the body for 35 days, at first in a shed, and later, in a storage box, at the Big Yellow storage warehouse in Brighton. He visited her body at the warehouse on several occasions for short periods. Detectives found a used condom and strongly suspected sexual activity. On 18th April, Coutts wheeled the box containing Ms Longhurst’s now very de-composed body to his car, kept it overnight and then the next day drove out to the countryside and set her body on fire.

Liz Longhurst believes her daughter had been “groomed” by Coutts so she wouldn’t suspect him. She said “I think about Jane all the time. I still have questions. I do think about how much planning he had done. Had he been watching Jane, just biding his time? She went to his home to see the new kitten he and Lisa had bought. I feel that even that was a ploy to reel her in. Jane was so gentle, so trusting. She was easy bait.”

Police believe Coutts may have been particularly attracted by Jane Longhurst because she was pretty and had an air of innocence about her. She also looked very young and had a very beautiful neck. Her mother described her as a “very spiritual person”.

Jailing Coutts for life, Judge Richard Brown said: “Everything that this court has heard about Jane showed her to be the sort of person who enriched all those who came into contact with her. The undoubted love of her partner, her life, her work and her music and her family screamed out of every page of the evidence I have heard in this case. In seeking perverted sexual gratification by way of your sordid and evil fantasies you have taken her life and devastated the lives of all those she loved and who loved her. By persisting in your denial you have put them through the ordeal of this courtroom and have forced them to live the last moments of her life and by the unbelievable degradation of her body you have shown not one jot of remorse.”

Coutts had had a fascination with strangling women since he was 15 years old and had a history of abusive behaviour towards females. Former partner Sandra Gates reported that he once said: “I want to rape and strangle a woman.” This was some 10 years before he killed Ms Longhurst. Another ex-partner told how she caught him hiding in a wardrobe watching her young daughter undress. The woman was so worried she persuaded him to seek professional help. Two former girlfriends of Coutts were reported to have agreed to his requests for “consensual” strangulation.

Coutts saw a psychiatrist with the old Brighton Health Authority in the early Nineties but after an initial consultation refused treatment. He told a doctor that he feared he would one day kill a woman. The court heard he regularly viewed extreme pornography on the internet and for some 8 years, downloaded thousands of pictures involving murder, rape, strangulation and necrophilia. Records show he was active on the internet on evenings immediately before and after killing Jane. The night before her death he downloaded pictures of dead women, strangulation, rape and murder.

After sentencing, Ms Longhurst’s sister Sue Barnett and her mother Liz Longhurst wept in the public gallery. Coutts’ former partner, Sandra Gates, leant towards him over the dock and shouted in his face: “You pervert.”

Detective Chief Inspector Steve Dennis, who was in charge of the case, said outside court: “A very dangerous man has been put away and I’m very pleased for that.”

Coutts was convicted of murder on 3rd February 2004, and sentenced to a life term serving a minimum of 30 years. Coutts compounded the agony of Jane Longhurst’s family and friends by alleging she died after a “consensual asphyxial sex session” went wrong. He subsequently challenged both the sentence and the conviction. The original tariff of 30 years was reduced to 26 years on appeal on 26th January 2005. The conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal on 19th July 2006, and a new trial started on 12th June 2007. He was again found guilty on 4th July 2007.

In 2009, following a long campaign led by Liz Longhurst, possession of sexually violent and extreme pornography including torture, rape and necrophilia became illegal and was included in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. The ban was backed by Jane Longhurst’s MP David Lepper and Liz Longhurst’s MP Martin Salter as well as Harriet Harman MP, the then Home Secretary David Blunkett MP and many others. They presented a petition to Parliament of more than 50,000 signatures. Anyone in possession of extreme sexually violent images now faces up to three years in jail.

Note: This report was drawn from reports in the Daily Mail, the BBC and the Argus.

FOD Comment:

Liz Longhurst has expressed disappointment that the legislation she fought for, is still not widely used and that judges are able to rule such evidence inadmissable in cases of rape and murder. She cites the case of Joanna Yeates who was strangled by Vincent Tabak. He too had accessed sexually violent pornography and alleged that he killed by accident. He was found guilty, but the jury had to make its decision lacking key evidence.

On the eve of the tenth anniversary of Jane Longhurst’s death, For Our Daughters salutes Liz Longhurst’s courage and acknowledges the depth of her grief and that of other family members and friends. Jane, your life is an inspiration to us. Rest in Peace.

Found dead February 2004

Shafilea Ahmed (17), a school student, was found dead in Cumbria in February 2004. Her parents Iftikhar (52), a taxi driver, and Farzana (49) are accused of murdering her at their home on Liverpool Road, Warrington, Cheshire, in September 2003. In May 2012 they went on trial at Chester Crown Court. They deny the charges.

Shafilea was reported to have disappeared from home in September 2003 and a week later was reported missing by teachers. Her decomposed and dismembered body was found in a flooded Cumbrian river. Due to decomposition, the cause of death could not be determined by the coroner, despite two post mortems.

Shafilea was born in Bradford and wanted to become a lawyer. It is alleged that her parents killed her because she wanted to live an independent non-traditional life. She had allegedly refused an arranged marriage to a cousin in Pakistan.

It is reported that Shafilea swallowed bleach during the trip to Pakistan in 2003, not long before she died, though her parents denied any attempts to pressurise her. Her father was reported to have claimed that she drank it during a power cut, thinking it was a bottle of fruit juice. Her mother is reported to have suggested the family say she drank it thinking it was mouth wash. Shafilea left poems which suggest she was in despair and confirm that she had run away in the past.

The bleach badly scarred her throat – an injury which required constant medical attention – and she was allowed to return to the UK, where she had to go into hospital for a considerable period of time.

Shafilea’s sister Alesha (23), who would have been 14 at the time of her death, has accused her parents of the murder. Though police had suspected a possible honour killing – and allegedly two of her siblings had been heard at school shortly after her disappearance talking about her murder – her parents were not charged with the death until in Alesha spoke to the police in 2010. The prosecution said it provided the “final piece of the puzzle” about her death.

The court heard that while in custody over an alleged robbery at the family home that she herself had arranged, Alesha told a solicitor and a police detective she had witnessed the murder. On 7 September 2011, Cheshire Police announced that Shafilea’s parents had been charged with her murder.

When Andrew Edis QC for the prosecution asked why Alesha had waited almost seven years to talk about her sister’s murder, she said: “It all got too much, and to be honest I think it was a relief more than anything to be able to tell someone finally.” adding “I just had to let it out. It has been haunting me for a long time.”

Alesha, is in witness protection and gave evidence behind a screen. She said her relationship with her parents “completely broke down” when she went to university, where she realised “how wrong family life was” during trips home at weekends and holidays.

The court heard that the Ahmeds murdered their daughter as they believed she had ‘dishonoured’ them and was too ‘Westernised’. It is alleged they subjected her to constant pressure, threats and domestic violence.

Alesha told the court that on the day of her death there had been an argument about Shafilea’s clothing. Allegedly Shafilea’s brother Junjade, then 13, had been asked by her parents to check Shafilea’s purse. She said saw her parents push her sister on to the sofa in their living room and – as her mother said “just finish it here” – they suffocated her in front of her brother and 2 sisters by forcing a plastic bag into her mouth and holding their hands over her face.

She said both parents held her down and that her father “had her held down with his leg in her midriff. She was kicking her legs”. Andrew Edis, prosecuting, asked Ms Ahmed whether she could see any of her sister’s face. She replied “Her eyes…They were open really wide. I could tell she was just gasping for air. She wet herself. She wet herself because she was struggling so much.” She said that a few moments later Shafilea lay dead. Ms Ahmed added “My parents carried on with their hands still on her mouth, even after she had stopped struggling. They carried on for 15, maybe 30 seconds.” She said the younger children ran from the room “because they were so upset”. She remained, frozen in shock. She said she watched her father pull Shafilea off the sofa and punch her in the chest “for no reason, just once”.

Alesha Ahmed said that as she left the room to go upstairs, she noticed that her sister’s eyes were still open. A couple of minutes later she went back downstairs and could see her mother sorting out printed, flowery sheets the family normally used as dust sheets when decorating. She said she also saw a roll of black bin bags and two rolls of tape on the kitchen floor.

Ms Ahmed said that while her parents made plans to dispose of the body, the couple’s son, Junyade, told Alesha and her two sisters, aged 12 and 7, who were very upset, that Shafilea “deserved it”.

Alesha said that she and her youngest sister briefly pulled back the bedroom curtains to see their father carrying something to one of the couple’s cars. “I assumed it was bin bags because it was black, with a bit of tape. From the way he was carrying it, it just looked like it was my sister Shafilea.”

Asked why she had kept quiet for all those years, she said: “I think it was not until I went to uni I saw how wrong family life was. When you get used to something, it becomes normal and that’s when I saw it wasn’t normal, really. I think what happened to my sister was wrong but because it’s your parents you think it’s normal because you still love them. I think at uni I did feel the way my sister had – you want to fit in with everyone else, but you are still being forced to live in a different way. I think that’s what made me crack.”

She said she was in a state of “emotional distress” when she made the witness statement about the murder and she had to let it out. When she was at university she lived like a western student and returned at weekends and holidays to her parents’ home. Alesha said her parents had set up a number of potential suitors but she refused to marry “someone she didn’t know” and her relationship with her mother and father “completely broke down” as it meant either living the way they wanted her to live, or live on her own. “Both were a struggle”, she explained to the jury.

When she arranged the robbery, she said she was not thinking properly. On 25th August 2010, three or four masked men burst into the house and searched for money, tying up everyone apart from Alesha. She told the court she was arrested after her mother and brother told police the thieves had known her name. She said “My mental state wasn’t very good, being between the two cultures, trying to please everyone.” She was behaving out of character and drinking at university. “I was not being myself any more.”

The trial continues.

Note: This report was compiled from reports in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Metro and Daily Mail.

by Jean Calder

Over the past few weeks there has been widespread discussion about the grooming and sexual exploitation of white girls by Asian men in Rochdale. Most of the debate has focused upon whether or not there was a racial aspect to the abuse. Blinkered rightwing commentators, including those of the BNP, insisted that the abuse involved racist offending against white girls by Asian Muslim men. Equally blinkered ‘progressives’ rejected any focus on either race or gender, emphasising the vulnerability of the victims and the fact that the majority of men who abuse children are white.

Typical amongst the latter group was Keith Vaz M.P., Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, who said: “I do not believe it is a race issue.” adding “What we need to do is to have a proper far-reaching, thorough investigation into these crimes and causes of these crimes. There are a lot of questions about the way in which organisations that have care of young girls have dealt with them and allowed them to be put into these positions”(my emphasis)… “I think we do need to look into this but I think it is quite wrong to stigmatise a whole community. ”

Both groups, obsessed with the issue of race and determined either to condemn or defend Pakistani Muslim men, have refused to address the attitudes of misogyny and contempt for women and girls which lie at the heart of these offences. Both groups have seemed indifferent to the safety of Asian women, happy to make the racist and sexist assumption that abusive Asian men protect ‘their own’ females.

In contrast, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi – encouraged rather touchingly by her Pakistani father – has called for condemnation of what she calls “This small minority who see women as second class citizens, and white women probably as third class citizens”. Baroness Warsi said of the abusers: “These were grown men, some of them religious teachers, or running businesses, with young families of their own. They knew this was wrong. Whether or not these girls were easy prey, they knew it was wrong.”

Nazir Afzal, also of Pakistani origin, was the courageous chief prosecutor for the CPS in the North West who reversed the original, flawed decision not to prosecute two members of the Rochdale gang. Other trials are in the pipeline. His was an early voice of both reason and outrage, acknowledging that poisonous attitudes to women in sections of the male Pakistani community gave rise to sexual exploitation. He said of the Rochdale abusers “These men are not defined by their race; they are defined by their attitude to young girls. They almost feel they have a right to control these young girls because no one else will. But they do it for their own nefarious purposes.”

Mr Afzal has reminded an apparently indifferent liberal intelligentsia that young Asian girls may also be suffering abuse, but feel unable to report it. It is to be hoped that the dreadful case of 17 year old Shafilea Ahmed – allegedly murdered because she refused to conform to a traditional life of female obedience and compliance – and that of her sister, allegedly silenced by fear and loyalty, will cause them to reconsider.

Baroness Warsi called for openness in the Islamic community, saying “In mosque after mosque after mosque, this (sexual exploitation of girls) should be raised as an issue so that anybody who is remotely involved should start to feel that the community is turning on them. Communities have a responsibility to stand up and say: ‘This is wrong, this will not be tolerated’.”

In the same way, elsewhere in our community, people such as police, journalists, editors, social workers, lawyers, charity workers and teachers, should examine their own role in failing to address issues of abuse against women and girls.

We surely all have a responsibility to say “This is wrong, this will not be tolerated.”

Disappeared presumed dead, Charlene in 2003 and Paige in 2007

Charlene Downes (14) disappeared in 2003 and is presumed dead. Paige Chivers (15) went missing in 2007 and is also presumed dead.

The two girls were linked to alleged sexual grooming and exploitation focussed upon fast food outlets in Blackpool. Following Charlene Downes’ disappearance in 2003, police found more than 60 girls were being groomed for sex around 11 Blackpool takeaways. They were mainly aged between 13 and 15, but some were as young as 11. It is alleged the children involved were offered food, alcohol and cigarettes in return for sexual activity.

Charlene Downes

Two restaurant owners were acquitted of Charlene Downes’ murder in 2007 and the crime remains unsolved. A jury failed to reach a verdict on charges that Iyad Albattikhi, a Jordanian, had murdered Charlene Downes while his landlord Mohammed Reveshi, an Iranian, had disposed of her body. A retrial collapsed in 2008 amid failings in the police investigation and the men were paid almost £250,000 each in compensation. The defence had successfully questioned the integrity of the recorded evidence and the accuracy of the transcription.

Claims were made in court that takeaway staff had joked that Charlene’s remains had “gone into the kebabs”. Recordings, later discredited, were alleged to reveal the accused talking about the disposal of the body. In 2012, the kebab shop, now renamed, was refused a hot food licence amid reports of continued ‘sexual activity’ linked to the premises, but the applicants reportedly blamed a police vendetta and appealed. FOD could find no reports as to whether that appeal was successful.

There have been allegations that a police report produced after Charlene Downes vanished in 2003 was suppressed, because of the racial mix of alleged abusers, most of whom were asian or middle eastern in origin, and victims, most of whom were white. Lancashire Police denied a cover up, saying the report had been available online since 2007 but had never been intended for publication. Assistant Chief Constable Andy Rhodes said his officers were making significant progress in tackling child sex exploitation across Lancashire, regardless of the background of the culprits. However, former Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell warned that research into the problem was being hampered by “concerns about upsetting community cohesion”.

Paige Chivers

Paige Chivers disappeared from her home in Longford Avenue, Bispham, Lancashire on 23rd August 2007 after a family argument. She packed a suitcase before she left. She was a former student at Montgomery High School.

Four people have previously been arrested on suspicion of Paige’s murder but all have been released without charge. Police in Lancashire have said they are committed to finding her killer. Detective Superintendent Dermott Horrigan, who is leading the investigation, said the police had “exhausted potential leads” for Paige, who would now be 20. He said it was never too late for people to come forward with new information, adding: “We remain committed to finding out the truth about what has happened to Paige.”

Paige was due to inherit a substantial amount of money on her 18th birthday following the death of her mother, police said.

Two years after her disappearance a 51-year-old man was arrested in Blackpool and was questioned about the disappearance. At that time, Detective Chief Inspector Mark Rothwell, from Lancashire Police’s major investigation team, was in charge of the investigation. He said then “Paige’s family continue to live with the daily anguish of not knowing what has happened to her and this month will face their third Christmas without her….We continue to keep an open mind and look for evidence as to what has happened to Paige.”

At the time she disappeared, her father, Chris, said: “I know that we had cross words before she left but I’m sure we can sort things out.” Detective Superintendent Kevin Toole said: “Paige has been described to us as a ‘streetwise’ girl, but nevertheless she is only 15 and we need her to contact us or her father to say that she is safe and well.

Note: This report was drawn from reports in the BBC and in the Daily Mail.

Disappeared, presumed dead 28th April1998

Arlene Fraser (33) from Elgin in Moray in Scotland disappeared on 28th April1998 after waving her two children, Jamie (then 10) and daughter Natalie (then 5) off to school. She is presumed dead, but her body has never been found.

Ms Fraser’s husband Nat Fraser (53) was found guilty of her murder on 30th May 2012. Fraser had denied the charge of murdering Ms Fraser between 28th April and 7th May 1998.

This was Fraser’s second trial. He had previously been convicted of Ms Fraser’s murder in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but the conviction was overturned in May 2011, after it was ruled unfair. Fraser has now been told he will have to serve a minimum of 17 years in prison before he can apply for parole. The trial took place at the High Court in Edinburgh. Relatives of Mrs Fraser expressed relief at the verdict.

Alex Prentice QC, prosecuting, said in his closing speech that Fraser had “instigated and organised” his wife’s murder. It was claimed he had hired a hitman. The court heard that Nat Fraser knew Ms Fraser wanted a divorce and had gone to a solicitor to see about getting a financial settlement.

Judge Lord Bracadale told Fraser: “The evidence indicated that at some point you arranged for someone to kill your wife, Arlene, and dispose of her body. Thus you instigated in cold blood the pre-meditated murder of your wife and mother of your children, then aged 10 and five years. The murder and disposal of the body must have been carried out with ruthless efficiency, for there is not a trace of Arlene Fraser from that day to this and her bereft family continue to live with no satisfactory knowledge of what happened to her remains.”

The judge said the “shocking and wicked” nature of the crime demanded a sentence well in excess of 20 years. However, because of the “procedural history” of the case, the sentence was cut to 17 years, backdated to June last year.

The disappearance of Mrs Fraser became one of the biggest ever investigations for Grampian Police. Detective Chief Superintendent Campbell Thomson said: “Our immediate thoughts are obviously with Arlene’s family. Hector, Cathy, Isabelle, Bill, Carol and Steven have shown such courage throughout the last 14 years.”

David Harvie, director of serious casework at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, said: “The Crown is absolutely determined to ensuring that criminals are brought to justice for crimes they have committed, no matter the passage of time nor the legal complexities involved.”

Only a month before Ms Fraser vanished, she came home in the early hours of Mother’s Day. On that occasion, Fraser grabbed her by the throat with such force that she suffered heavy bruising to the neck and haemorrhaging to the eyelids. Ms Fraser later told friends that she had been unable to breathe and that her thoughts had been of her children. It seems this assault was the final straw and she decided she wanted a divorce. The incident was reported to the police. Fraser was charged with attempted murder, and left the family home and went to live with friends. Subsequently, Fraser pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assaulting his wife to the danger of her life. A not guilty plea to an earlier offence, of punching and kicking his wife, was accepted by the Crown. He was jailed for 18 months.

During the recent murder retrial, witnesses made remarks which came close to revealing the assault conviction. Ms Fraser’s stepmother had spoken of Ms Fraser being in a women’s refuge and her father said he had not had a problem with Fraser “prior to mothering Sunday.” Another witness described the change in Fraser’s personality “after he had been imprisoned for a previous incident.” Fraser’s QC, John Scott, argued for the trial to be deserted. However, the judge disagreed and directed the jury that the reference to imprisonment “should be ignored completely.”

During the retrial, Ms Fraser’s mother, Isabelle Thompson (66), from Motherwell, North Lanarkshire, told the High Court that her daughters had been out-going and loving. Ms Thompson said Ms Fraser was “a very good mother, very loving” adding “She always loved to buy them new clothes, took them swimming, took them dancing. She was always doing something.”

Ms Thompson told the court how her daughter married Nat Fraser in 1987 and they set up home together in New Elgin. Ms Thompson told the court that her daughter and Fraser had separated prior to her disappearance and Fraser had moved out of the family home earlier in 1998. The trial heard that Ms Thompson confronted her son-in-law over her daughter’s disappearance, asking if he had harmed her, but he denied it.

Ms Thompson told the court that after her daughter went missing Fraser did not seem to be concerned and, on one occasion, joked inappropriately. Asked by the prosecutor about her impression of Mr Fraser, Ms Thompson replied: “He didn’t seem that bothered one way or another.”

The trial heard that a search of Ms Fraser’s Smith Street address revealed she had not taken her sunglasses, contact lenses, store cards, passport or bank book. In court Ms Thompson identified Mrs Fraser’s eternity ring, diamond and gold wedding ring and sapphire and diamond engagement ring. She said had not seen the rings in the Smith Street house in the early days following her daughter’s disappearance, but that she later learned they had “appeared” at the house.

During the defence, John Scott QC asked questions about the earlier 2003 trial in which Hector Dick had been one of three men accused of murdering Arlene. On that occasion, he left the dock and gave evidence for the prosecution. The other man on trial then, Glenn Lucas, is now dead. A book about the case “Murdered or Missing?: The Arlene Fraser Case” was published by Reg McKay and Glenn Lucas in 2005. The two men were dismissed from the original trial as not guilty.

Note: This report was drawn from reports in the BBC, the Scotsman and the Daily Record with background information from Wikipedia.

Died September – December 2002

Julie Dorsett (33) from Hackney, in east London, went missing in 2002. She was beaten to death and cut in half before being wrapped in a duvet and dumped on a rubbish tip on an allotment. A man is on trial for her murder.

Ms Dorsett’s remains were found by Charles Joseph, a gardener, clearing out an old water tank at the plot in Low Hall Farm in Walthamstow, north east London. DNA matched Miss Dorsett. Only the top half of her body was recovered from the site. It had been severed at the waist and the lower parts remains missing.

Julie Dorsett’s ex-partner Sinclair Lewis, now 55, has been charged with murder and is on trial at the Old Bailey. It is alleged he had been violent to her in the past and killed her some time between October 2002 and August 2008. Ms Dorsett’s remains were found at his father’s land on Low Hall Allotments in Bridge Road. Lewis denies the charge.

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said: “This case concerns the circumstances surrounding the death of a female called Julie Dorsett who had once been this defendant’s girlfriend.

The partial remains of her skeleton was discovered in August 2008, so three-and-a-half years ago in an allotment in the Walthamstow area of London. It appears after her death, her body was cut in half in order to assist with the disposal. Only the top half of the skeleton was found. It was discovered she died five to six years earlier.”

He said there were two strands to the evidence that pointed to Lewis being the culprit for the murder. He told the Old Bailey: “You will hear evidence that the defendant and the victim Julie Dorsett were involved in an abusive relationship over a number of years during which the defendant regularly beat the victim. We allege the severity of these beatings increased until one particular brutal and bloody assault that occurred the night before Julie Dorsett’s simply disappeared from the address she had been staying at.”

He continued: “The second strand of evidence relates to the allotment. The allotment in which her partial remains were found had once belonged to the defendant’s father.”

The jury heard the forensic archaeologist concluded the top half of her body had initially been wrapped up in the duvet but at some point disturbed and some bones fell into the water tank where they laid undiscovered. A post mortem of the bones also revealed there were numerous rib fractures but other fractures to the bones that had not healed.

The pathologist concluded one particular fracture to the right collarbone was caused at the time of death, the jury were told.

An isotope expert carried out chemical analysis of the bones and pinpointed the time of Ms Dorsett’s death to within a timeframe of between September to December 2002.

Lewis denies murder and preventing the lawful and decent burial of a corpse. The trial, expected to last two weeks, continues.

Note: This report was compiled from reports in Murder Maps and the Mail On line.